• A new LGBTQ+ forum is now being trialed and there have been changes made to the Support and Advice forum. To read more about these updates, click here.
  • Hey Trainers! Be sure to check out Corsola Beach, our newest section on the forums, in partnership with our friends at Corsola Cove! At the Beach, you can discuss the competitive side of the games, post your favorite Pokemon memes, and connect with other Pokemon creators!
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

Why do you think Wally was absent in the anime?

HumanDawn

Living the rich life
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Messages
7,713
Reaction score
3,464
After playing ORAS, I started thinking of how much nicer it would have been to have Wally in the main cast with May, Ash and Brock instead of Max. In the games when he started his journey he wasn't personally prepared and had to stop 1/4 in and go back home, so the staff could have made him a trainer for a while and then halted his gym badge collecting quest and continued with Ash to learn, being similar to how Max ended up learning a lot about Pokemon and battling with him. Even Max got an established connection with a Ralts like Wally, although Max didn't catch it. So why make an original character for the anime when you could have used an existing one that could have filled a similar role and have more potential room for development as well having another character on the cast to advertise in the games? Were they thinking of maybe having Wally used as a rival but ended up not being interested in developing him?

I don't hate Max and actually liked his character and his relationship with Ash and May, but I have to wonder why he was used instead of Wally when all of his traits could have been given to Wally, with only cutting the sister and brother relationship with May. Was Max just an easier 4th character to draw? It's just puzzling when they could have put in a character with a lot more potential than Max in this cast. They might not have been able to develop him like in the games doing so where he ended up having a team of 5 strong Pokemon, but nevertheless, they could have easily just had him join the main cast as a temporary member like they did with Bianca in BW, had him go through his development in the same places as the games with a few alterations and had his in game battle be a battle in the Pokemon League Ash could face.

Wally's absence in the anime and any of the movies leaves me to wonder why he wasn't adapted. While he wasn't a particularly important character in the games, he did get enough attention that warranted an anime adaptation in my opinion which could have been done a bit differently to be more interesting.
 
This is just my guess, but I think they were intending to introduce Wally as a contest rival for May, but then switched his design and changed his character completely for some reason, only leaving the green hair: Drew. This might be minor, but Drew has a Roselia (now Roserade), which is also a member of Wally's team when you battle him at Victory Road.
 
This is just my guess, but I think they were intending to introduce Wally as a contest rival for May, but then switched his design and changed his character completely for some reason, only leaving the green hair: Drew. This might be minor, but Drew has a Roselia (now Roserade), which is also a member of Wally's team when you battle him at Victory Road.

Wally could have worked as a contest rival and I could see why they would rather have him have Drew's personality, but Drew himself is a completely different character so I find it hard to see Drew as an adaptation of Wally just for having green hair and a Roselia. Gardevior ended up being his main Pokemon, while Roselia was just one Pokemon he had, unlike Drew whose main was Roselia. Maybe if Drew's main was somebody from the Ralts line, I'd have an easier time seeing him as a potential adaptation of Wally.
 
This is just my guess, but I think they were intending to introduce Wally as a contest rival for May, but then switched his design and changed his character completely for some reason, only leaving the green hair: Drew. This might be minor, but Drew has a Roselia (now Roserade), which is also a member of Wally's team when you battle him at Victory Road.

Wally could have worked as a contest rival and I could see why they would rather have him have Drew's personality, but Drew himself is a completely different character so I find it hard to see Drew as an adaptation of Wally just for having green hair and a Roselia. Gardevior ended up being his main Pokemon, while Roselia was just one Pokemon he had, unlike Drew whose main was Roselia. Maybe if Drew's main was somebody from the Ralts line, I'd have an easier time seeing him as a potential adaptation of Wally.

Yeah... it was the closest thing I could think of, though.

Also, as a travelling companion, Wally would have been rather inconvenient. Wally's biggest trait is that he's a sickly kid, and joining the group would have been more of an escort mission to protect Wally rather than having a companion.
 
This is just my guess, but I think they were intending to introduce Wally as a contest rival for May, but then switched his design and changed his character completely for some reason, only leaving the green hair: Drew. This might be minor, but Drew has a Roselia (now Roserade), which is also a member of Wally's team when you battle him at Victory Road.

Wally could have worked as a contest rival and I could see why they would rather have him have Drew's personality, but Drew himself is a completely different character so I find it hard to see Drew as an adaptation of Wally just for having green hair and a Roselia. Gardevior ended up being his main Pokemon, while Roselia was just one Pokemon he had, unlike Drew whose main was Roselia. Maybe if Drew's main was somebody from the Ralts line, I'd have an easier time seeing him as a potential adaptation of Wally.

Yeah... it was the closest thing I could think of, though.

Also, as a travelling companion, Wally would have been rather inconvenient. Wally's biggest trait is that he's a sickly kid, and joining the group would have been more of an escort mission to protect Wally rather than having a companion.

That's where his character could develop though, similarly to how Clemont isn't a really confident person and how most of the things he invents fail. I don't think Wally was weak to the point he was a "sickly kid" though, and I don't think the cast would need to protect him for an entire journey since I don't think he was characterized to be that weak of a person. He had difficulties travelling alone but that doesn't mean he couldn't travel with a group and not stick with it.

It's a shame he got the short end of the stick with not even appearing from all the Hoenn characters. While Steven only got one episode that made him out as some CotD with nothing special or important to him, he's at least getting attention with the Mega Evolution episodes. Even in that one ORAS short he even got a small scene to show him off, while Wally ended up not getting anything. Wally had so much potential so it's kind of a let down he wasn't in the anime or anything animated. I'm kind of hoping he shows up somehow in Mega Evolution Act III or the next act with a Mega Gallade so even though we don't see him grow we'd at least see him be cool but I really doubt that he'd even appear in it.
 
That's where his character could develop though, similarly to how Clemont isn't a really confident person and how most of the things he invents fail. I don't think Wally was weak to the point he was a "sickly kid" though, and I don't think the cast would need to protect him for an entire journey since I don't think he was characterized to be that weak of a person. He had difficulties travelling alone but that doesn't mean he couldn't travel with a group and not stick with it.

The games do state that he's got poor health. But yeah, I agree that maybe travelling as a group would help him be a more cheerful kid.

It's a shame he got the short end of the stick with not even appearing from all the Hoenn characters. While Steven only got one episode that made him out as some CotD with nothing special or important to him, he's at least getting attention with the Mega Evolution episodes. Even in that one ORAS short he even got a small scene to show him off, while Wally ended up not getting anything. Wally had so much potential so it's kind of a let down he wasn't in the anime or anything animated. I'm kind of hoping he shows up somehow in Mega Evolution Act III or the next act with a Mega Gallade so even though we don't see him grow we'd at least see him be cool but I really doubt that he'd even appear in it.

I also want Wally to appear in the anime as well. It would be really cool if he appeared in Mega Evolution Act III, or with May in the main series. From what I'm seeing, Wally gained new popularity, so making him appear with Mega Gallade would be a good way to promote the games.
 
For the same reason Silver and Brendan didn't appeared (as rivals), and N and Barry ended up appearing late: The anime doesn't like to use game characters that much, even less in the Johto-Battle frontier era.

I don't know what Max's purpose was, but it certainly wasn't becoming a developed character, and some like Wally with a workable story would have stolen a lot of focus from May and Ash.

Also, he wouldn't have worked as a rival in contest, as Wally is a rookie and May was also a rookie, so there wouldn't be enough motivation to surpass the other person.

Turning Wally into a badass wouldn't have worked either, just look at his eyes...
 
For the same reason Silver and Brendan didn't appeared (as rivals), and N and Barry ended up appearing late: The anime doesn't like to use game characters that much, even less in the Johto-Battle frontier era.

Paul ended up serving as a Silver adaptation years later in Diamond and Pearl. While it may have not been a direct adaptation with Paul being from Sinnoh and having not stolen any Pokemon, his design looked a lot like Silver's but made more purple and his behaviour towards Pokemon and personality was similar. Brendan I could understand not being a rival because Ash took his place like how he does with every male playable character of every main game and May joined the cast. If the anime didn't like to use game characters that much I doubt we'd have such a cast filled with game characters all the time.

I don't know what Max's purpose was, but it certainly wasn't becoming a developed character, and some like Wally with a workable story would have stolen a lot of focus from May and Ash.

Max's purpose was most likely to serve as a somebody to teach Pokemon related things to, he was like an audience surrogate for children and being 7 years old would make it easier for kids to relate to him. I'm not saying it was his only purpose, but that it was one. Wally could have filled the same spot, although I thought Ash and May filled it perfectly themselves alone.

Also, he wouldn't have worked as a rival in contest, as Wally is a rookie and May was also a rookie, so there wouldn't be enough motivation to surpass the other person.

That depends on how the staff develop Wally. Maybe not an intense rival, but a rival who helps May out from time to time and she helps him back. It could still be interesting.

Turning Wally into a badass wouldn't have worked either, just look at his eyes...

I wasn't thinking exactly badass, but just confident and strong.
 
Male rivals have typically gotten the short end of the stick, as has been pointed out, although Wally has had the bad luck of being completely ignored (Silver and Brendan at least had small cameos in feature films) - there wasn't even a place for him in the ORAS promo short.

I've often wondered if the anime was just reluctant to include a character with a chronic illness resembling real-life asthma, for whatever reason. I've noticed that disability isn't particularly well-represented in the franchise in general (other than Pryce in the manga, trainers in wheelchairs seem to be non-existent).
 
Last edited:
I've often wondered if the anime was just reluctant to include a character with a chronic illness resembling real-life asthma, for whatever reason. I've noticed that disability isn't particularly well-represented in the franchise in general (other than Pryce in the manga, trainers in wheelchairs seem to be non-existent).

If they were too afraid of him being too weak, they could have toned it down to their own acceptable levels but still kept his flaws, so I doubt that would be much of a reason not to include him. Wally could have been such a relatable character to represent a disability holding back someone, and I believe the anime could have handled it right in some way.
 
It'd be interesting to learn if the anime staff is given information about all the important NPC characters prior to release to decide who to include alongside Ash, or if the higher-ups tell them in particular who they want getting the focus.
 
I thought that I should chime in here since I love both Advanced Generation (it's my favorite series) and Wally (mostly since he is similar to me in some ways).

For one thing, Wally feels like he is such a well defined character, with his goals and his personality pretty much locked in if they had chosen him for a character. Unlike Max, whose base probably started as a mere School Kid with no background, Wally already had a template they pretty much had to use; otherwise, they would completely change the character and that may not be a good thing since people who have played the games may not like it. Perhaps the character wasn't what they were looking for when they developed the story for the anime. If one takes a look at any of the (main) characters, none of them seem close to Wally, so he couldn't simply replace any of them.

Also, with all of this information pertaining to the character, they may not have the time to develop him in a certain amount of episodes. They already had a lot to work with (May's contests, Ash's gym battles, Team Aqua/Magma, introducing the new Pokemon, etc.) which also brought in a ton of characters the writers felt were necessary to each piece. One could argue that Wally could be a part of those characters, but again, his fixed personality would be a problem here. They probably wanted to introduce a couple new characters too: characters they felt the most comfortable in dealing with, or those who would further drive the main components for example. Wally also had a bit of a jump in development that the anime had to fill in to make sense of the character; he turned, from a weak little boy, to a powerful confident trainer without showing how his change exactly happens in the games. His character would take some time to create and develop and they probably didn't want to deal with that.

My argument falls apart however, when one realizes that Wally could have been a simple one time character like Steven. I'm sure someone can help fill in the blanks here… (My paragraph on the development of the character seems to come close though).

With that being said, I hope that he eventually becomes a character in a special, or in the main anime, due to ORAS, especially since he is one of my favorite characters in the game (I haven't finished ORAS yet however, but I like what I have seen for far). He's a pretty important character in the games with an interesting premise; I want to see how they deal with the character even if we only see him for (less than) 30 minutes.

(Sorry if my argument is a bit disorganized; I wrote this up pretty quickly and I'm a bit tired)
 
Might not have been interesting enough, though they didn't put the gen 2 rival in either so maybe it was just their thing those two gens.

Cheren didn't end up in either till his gym leader role. No Hugh either. I guess they just don't really like game rivals.
 
Might not have been interesting enough, though they didn't put the gen 2 rival in either so maybe it was just their thing those two gens.

Cheren didn't end up in either till his gym leader role. No Hugh either. I guess they just don't really like game rivals.

To be fair regarding Hugh, I don't think that they could have included him. Team Plasma was pretty significant to his storyline. Without including the original Team Plasma and turning Neo Team Plasma into generic villains with mind control, I don't think that they could have fit Hugh into BW. I'm not sure why they didn't include Cheren when they already had Bianca throughout most of BW though. That just seemed odd, but maybe they knew about Cheren becoming a Gym Leader ahead of time and figured it would be easier to just save his appearance until later.

As for Wally, I think that it was due to how the writers often don't take advantage of characters from the video games. They've done that with other characters, such as how it took them years just to showcase the Kanto Elite 4, so perhaps they just weren't interested in using Wally, especially when they weren't interested in giving Ash a rival in AG either. I love the idea of Wally traveling with Ash, May and Brock in place of Max. I generally liked Max, but Wally would have been a more interesting character most likely.
 
Might not have been interesting enough, though they didn't put the gen 2 rival in either so maybe it was just their thing those two gens.

Cheren didn't end up in either till his gym leader role. No Hugh either. I guess they just don't really like game rivals.

To be fair regarding Hugh, I don't think that they could have included him. Team Plasma was pretty significant to his storyline. Without including the original Team Plasma and turning Neo Team Plasma into generic villains with mind control, I don't think that they could have fit Hugh into BW. I'm not sure why they didn't include Cheren when they already had Bianca throughout most of BW though. That just seemed odd, but maybe they knew about Cheren becoming a Gym Leader ahead of time and figured it would be easier to just save his appearance until later.

As for Wally, I think that it was due to how the writers often don't take advantage of characters from the video games. They've done that with other characters, such as how it took them years just to showcase the Kanto Elite 4, so perhaps they just weren't interested in using Wally, especially when they weren't interested in giving Ash a rival in AG either. I love the idea of Wally traveling with Ash, May and Brock in place of Max. I generally liked Max, but Wally would have been a more interesting character most likely.

When they did that Cheren episode, I wanted to see Nate, Rosa and Hugh cameo. They should've had one of them fighting Cheren with Ash and co watching, like they did with Cameron and Marshall.
 
Wally was unique character but i believe one of main reasons why he wasn't use could be because writers wanted to give May younger brother to generate some conflict, high level of perception and down to earth nature warning of foolish attempts in interplay between character personalities.
Which was with Misty removal lost or toned down to good extent. Part of that guess also stems from fact that writers had Max end up influeced by Misty when starting to apply similar tactic in keeping Brock hormones under control after seeing her doing it.

Therefore my guess is that instead of having sickly boy named Wally who may have not suit that type of personality writers decided to create Max based on school kid from RS games. As someone who could fulfill better May more sweet and ditzy nature as her brother introducing brother-sister relationship serving as nice reflection to very comon type of dynamic prevailing between siblings in real life. Working very well actually in May having someone which could bring dose of realism to her when she starts having head in clouds and catalyst through which her character could develop more care and attentioon toward someone she is protective about.

With Wally interests and characteristics partially being transferred to Max in sense of having affinity toward pokemon creatures like Ralts deverloping very strong boind with it, eager child which wants to learn about world, pokemon and battles as much as possible researching about it outdoors. Something Wally according to games wanted as well deciding that his illness wont represent impediment in it.

While rest of Wally signature features such as green hair, fact of having Roselia in his team etc ending injected in anime only creation known as Drew as May most important rival.

So in end Wally design and signature traits were divided among two different characters writers introduced in AG series. With his traits at least partially living through Drew and Max as bizarre as it may sound.

Another reason why Wally wasn't included may come from his illness and relatively weak physical condition. Something garrison-san hit nail on the head with her statement.

Because looking back pokemon anime lasts for more than 17 years and we very rarely if ever saw characters with disability or some sort of hasndicap introduced in pokemon. Whether its wheelchair, eye patch, crutch etc.

With heads in charge of pokemon company trying to avoid this in show mainly aimed at small kids, even though it makes no sense to me. Because if its point lies in teaching them moral values and to do always right thing, emphasize on helping people in neeed who cannot do something by themselves would better prepare small child for world and teach them important lesson. Lesson of respecting and valuing people regardless of their appearance and capability.

Although personally i liked Max and how he complimented Ash, Brock and May in Honn delivering more varied chemistry on group level. If anything if we had someone instead of Max i would be more for Misty staying for Hoenn than, having so many water based themes screaming missed potential for water master growth and finding more appealing idea of two girls in cast at that time who could learn from each other and grow through build of relationship.

However i still think Wally could be used as May rival at very least. Because kid definitely had potential, had interesting collection of pokemon(just looking at likes of Gardevoir, Magnetone, Altaria makese me wish we saw him introdued in anime in some form) and his health condition would provide genuine and innovative challenge for Ash and company. In dealing with unexpected, urgent situations helping him and trying to encourage young boy not to give up from his dreams regardless of its physical limits.
 
Last edited:
To be fair regarding Hugh, I don't think that they could have included him. Team Plasma was pretty significant to his storyline. Without including the original Team Plasma and turning Neo Team Plasma into generic villains with mind control, I don't think that they could have fit Hugh into BW.

They could have easily gotten him involved by having his little sister's Purrloin being taken through the mind control. I haven't played BW2 so I don't know much of Hugh's storyline, but I doubt that there was no way to include him or that it would take too much effort. Maybe not stick till the end, but an episode might have been enough.

As for Wally, I think that it was due to how the writers often don't take advantage of characters from the video games. They've done that with other characters, such as how it took them years just to showcase the Kanto Elite 4, so perhaps they just weren't interested in using Wally, especially when they weren't interested in giving Ash a rival in AG either. I love the idea of Wally traveling with Ash, May and Brock in place of Max. I generally liked Max, but Wally would have been a more interesting character most likely.

That sounds reasonable. I hope they're interested in using him in the Mega Evolution specials with ORAS giving him back some attention as I think it's currently he's biggest chance to appear in the anime now.
 
They could have easily gotten him involved by having his little sister's Purrloin being taken through the mind control. I haven't played BW2 so I don't know much of Hugh's storyline, but I doubt that there was no way to include him or that it would take too much effort. Maybe not stick till the end, but an episode might have been enough.

They could have done that, but I think that it would have lost too much of its impact since his sister's Purrloin had been gone for years and during that time, evolved to the point where it didn't remember them, or at least that's the impression I got. Giving him just a one off episode would have been really weird. It kind of made sense to do that with Cheren since he had already become a Gym Leader and they skipped everything about his storyline from B/W anyway, but without Team Plasma stealing his sister's Purrloin years before, I don't think it would have been as effective. Plus, with the way that arc was handled, I think just giving him an episode to cover his backstory and getting Purrloin back would have stood out like a sore thumb.

HumanDawn said:
That sounds reasonable. I hope they're interested in using him in the Mega Evolution specials with ORAS giving him back some attention as I think it's currently he's biggest chance to appear in the anime now.

That would be awesome since he's a pretty cool character. Not one of my favorite rivals, although he's far better than the bland Brendan/May rivals, but Wally certainly does deserve more attention and it would be cool to see him in the anime.
 
To me, Masato only exists to help along Haruka. Teasing Haruka to get on her nerves, getting in trouble to make her worried, running to her whenever he gets scared so she can be a caring older sister...he was basically an easy way to elicit reactions out of Haruka so we could see what kind of character she is. I'm sure there are people who felt that Kenji was just a poor imitation of Takeshi and so they introduced a little brother character to make sure nobody thought the same thing about Haruka and Kasumi.

And since Masato's around, then, sadly, there's no room for Mitsuru.
 
Please note: The thread is from 3 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
Back
Top Bottom